You can go home again as Yankees rookie outfielder Spencer Jones will prove on Friday night when his club opens a three-game series against the Padres at Petco Park.
The San Diego native will be playing for the first time as a Major Leaguer in the ballpark where he grew up watching the Padres while engaged on the field for La Costa Canyon High School up the coast in Carlsbad. He was born and raised in nearby Encinitas.
“I’m super excited about this,” Jones told Times of San Diego this week at Angel Stadium in Anaheim where he hit a pair of homers and the Yanks won two of three games from the Angels. “Super excited to see family and friends. See my one-year old nephew who I haven’t seen since Christmas.”
Jones, tall and gangly at 6-7, said he hasn’t played a game in San Diego in six years.
“It’s been awhile,” he said.
Does he have enough tickets?
“I hope so. My mother and father are taking care of that,” he added.
Jones is 25 years old and didn’t grow up in the most propitious Padres era. Born in 2001, he’s never seen the Padres make it to the World Series, which they last did in 1998, when they were swept by his future team. His first memory of the Friars as a kid of maybe five or six also wasn’t very notable.
“I just remember the first game I went to Kevin Kouzmanoff hit a home run,” Jones said, referring to the long-forgotten third baseman who played for the Padres from 2007-09 and batted .257. “That’s the one thing I remember.”
He was drafted out of high school by the Angels in 2019, but decided instead to play college ball at Vanderbilt. The Yanks then came calling, selecting him 25th overall in the 2022 First-Year Player Draft.
Thus far, it’s worked out.
Making the most of an opportunity
Jones is at this point this season because a right rib fracture to Yankee star Aaron Judge opened a huge opportunity. Jones has been up and down from the minor leagues, but came up for good on June 5. Manager Aaron Boone has used him in all three outfield positions, but he’s played 34 of 60 games in right field where Judge would normally be stationed.
Judge has been out since May 31, missing the club’s last 79 games and counting. Jones has made the most of it, hitting nine homers, driving in 28 runs and amassing a .756 OPS. He’s become a regular as Boone has been trying to figure it all out.
The Yankees have for long stretches, because of injury, had not only Judge, but also Giancarlo Stanton and Cody Bellinger missing from their starting lineup. From the pitching side, starters Max Fried, Gerrit Cole, Carlos Rondon and Clark Schmidt missed huge chunks of the season in recovery. Schmidt is currently on a minor-league rehab.
There’s no timeframe yet on Judge’s return, although he’s with the team on this six-game Western trip, but not scheduled to begin facing live pitching until the club returns home to Yankee Stadium next week against Colorado. He said he hopes to be back before the end of the season.
The Yanks have had to liberally use their shuttle from Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre in Pennsylvania to compensate. Despite it all, they are 80-60 with 22 games remaining in the season and on track to win 90 to 95 games and make the playoffs. Jones has been a big part of it.
“He’s been incredible. He’s been fun to watch,” said Judge, who like Jones is 6-7, but much broader at the shoulders. “He’s put a show on in Anaheim the last couple of days, but going to San Diego for him is going to be special. He’s going to put on an even bigger show back home, so that will be fun.”
Judge’s return may create a dilemma for Boone. Judge will be back in right field with Bellinger in left. The usual center fielder, former Padre Trent Grisham, has been struggling at the plate. Does Boone move Jones over to center or use him as a DH? He’s not even an average defensive outfielder at this point.
“But I’m working on it,” Jones said.
Game changer
Boone, though, likes the improvement.
“He’s an impact player,” Boone said Wednesday. “He can impact the game in a profound way on both sides of the ball, on the bases, you name it. There’s nothing he can’t do on the field. When he’s playing at his best, he can change the game.”
Boone is familiar with coming home again. He was an 11-year-old when his father, Bob, a top flight big-league catcher, moved the family to Orange County where his dad played for the Angels for seven seasons from 1982 to 1988. Bob came up with the Phillies in 1972. Aaron was born in 1973, so at 52 he’s always been a baseball rat.
“Obviously I can relate to [Jones] because of my own situation the first time I came back [to Anaheim] to play a game because of my dad, or in Philly,” Boone said. “Going back and playing those kinds of games in front of family is always a lot of fun, especially when you’re doing it for the first time.
“You’re a big leaguer. You made it here. And you get a chance for a lot of people who shared in the journey to see you in a Major League stadium for the first time. That’s pretty cool.”
